West Virginia Executive Summer 2014 - Page 60

Opportunities on Every Level
A by-product of today’s technology-driven culture is that
students are guided toward secondary and postsecondary education, often toward technology jobs. However, the reality is that
the growing job market in manufacturing is increasing, which will
allow room for vocational-technical, specialty-program and high
school graduates to compete for jobs alongside college graduates.
A major appeal of jobs that don’t require college degrees is
that young people can enter the job market without the albatross of five- and six-figure student loan debt. Forty million
Americans have student loan debt, and 7 million of them are in
default, according to U.S. News and World Report. Since the year
2000, total student debt has increased more than 500 percent.
While Randolph explains that the WVMA would never
suggest that a student not seek higher education, the proof of
the opportunities that lie in alternative educational training like
vocational-technical and on-the-job is in the numbers:
• Approximately 70 percent of U.S. jobs don’t require a fouryear degree, although they do require some form of postsecondary training.
• Although engineering posts are considered the hardest jobs to
fill, the second is machinists and machine operators, followed
by skilled trades and technicians.
• Seventy percent of those who finish a two-year technical
program or certification graduate with better than a 99
percent job placement rate.
• West Virginia Career and Technical Education (WVCTE)
centers offer 88 career pathways with 53 specializations and
state and national certifications.
PROFESSIONAL E XPERIENCE
from conception to completion
• WV’s largest A/E firm.
• ENR Ranking #303.
• Zweig White Hot Firm #22.
300 Association Drive
Charleston, WV 25311
304-343-7601
60
• Over $90 million in recent
educational construction in WV.
• Certified Educational
Facilities Planner on staff.
www.thrashereng.com
west virginia executive
600 White Oaks Blvd
Bridgeport, WV 26330
304-624-4108
• WVCTE centers have a 98 percent graduation rate and a 96
percent placement rate with 54 percent entering the work
force and 42 percent going on to postsecondary education.
Thriving and Job-Driving Industries
Examples of long-term opportunities run through several
influential industries. West Virginia’s hardwood industry, for
example, is an international powerhouse. Apart from domestic
sales, the Mountain State exported almost $100 million in hardwoods alone in 2013. However, the industry is having trouble
keeping a skilled work force in place because there aren’t enough
truck drivers and sawmill operators, most of which utilize onthe-job training programs.
Many in the Mountain State groused at the number of outof-state license plates from Texas and Oklahoma they saw
when the shale gas boom began, but the simple truth is that
West Virginia did not have a work force with the required skills
for the industry in place when the opportunity arose. Slowly,
those out-of-state workers are being replaced with West Virginia
residents who have garnered the experience to be rig hands,
welders, truck drivers and pipeliners.
Global chemical giant Odebrecht is exploring the development of a new petrochemical complex in Wood County, which
is considered the most promising of all economic development
projects in West Virginia in years. The complex, named Appalachian Shale Cracker Enterprise, or ASCENT, would include
an ethane cracker, three polyethylene plants and the associated
infrastructure for water treatment and natural product transmission. The facility would be managed by Braskem, and the
estimated investment would be $3.8 billion for construction,
$150 million for pipeline development and another $40 million
for rail, truck and storage facilities.
Another area of opportunity lies in the need for further development of West Virginia’s infrastructure. Throughout the
country and in West Virginia, highways and bridges are in need
of repair or replacement now more than ever. Highway needs
create a huge potential demand for infrastructure redevelopment and the jobs that go with it. Further, the completion of
necessary highways, including Corridor H and Route 35, will
not only create new jobs in construction but also in manufacturing. The result of this infrastructure work will be access to
markets through out-of-state and international ports because
of these highways.
With these opportunities directly in our view, both Demarco
and Randolph agree that business and industry leaders, as well
as state officials and educators, need to re-focus some of the
state’s job messages.
While Randolph explains that one of the WVMA’s challenges
is to overcome the stigma that working a manufacturing job or
a skilled labor job is not a success story, Demarco says society
needs to roll back the clock to a time when American workers
had a different approach to work and the jobs they pursued.
“Now, we’ve got an opportunity to get back to that way of
thinking,” says Demarco. “We’ve got jobs, and more jobs are
coming. And good jobs often don’t require college degrees. They
just need people willing to work hard and have a little smarts
and problem-solving skills.” 